by David P. Greisman
Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages.com
The final bell tolled before the opening bell rang. Before Marco Antonio Barrera stepped into the ring for his rematch with Manny Pacquiao, he said he would retire after what had been a long and legendary career. But revenge would have to come first.
Twelve rounds passed. Another final bell tolled. And there was Barrera, lifted upon the shoulders of his cornerman, a trickle of crimson flowing from a cut on his cheek.
It would be his only taste of blood that night.
Few could blame Barrera, not when his mind already knew that the end had come, that he had accomplished so much in capturing a championship at featherweight and titles at junior featherweight and junior lightweight. Not when his body had been through war and then reenlisted for more: 12 rounds with Kennedy McKinney, 36 rounds with Erik Morales, the mental and physical battles in-between that included two straight losses to Junior Jones and one stellar win over Prince Naseem Hamed.
Not when he had already had 11 rounds of Pacquiao.
Barrera was unlike so many who would reach their peaks, recognize their limits and then fade away. Barrera could adjust. He had out-boxed Robbie Peden in one fight and battled in the trenches with Rocky Juarez in the next. Juarez had punished Barrera on the inside and nearly come out with the victory, so Barrera stayed outside in their rematch and worked behind an accurate jab, effective counterpunching and exceptional footwork.
Pacquiao’s speed and power had proven too much for Barrera to handle in November 2003. Barrera had been credited with a flash knockdown in the opening heat, but the “Filipino Firebomber” surged back, brutalizing Barrera, flooring him twice and frustrating the veteran to the point that an intentional foul and surviving the duration of the bout seemed the best and last remaining tactics.
Pacquiao handled the intentional foul. Barrera didn’t make it out of the 11th.
This time, things would need to be different for Barrera. He would come in without the distractions he had going into the first fight, when a fire broke out near his training camp and frenzy broke out over the revelation that years before a metal plate had been implanted in his head. He would come in well-prepared, in-shape and with multiple strategies for success.
He would come in haunted by – and acting like – the ghost of a warrior’s past.
It was expected that Barrera would come out boxing, though the possibility remained that Pacquiao would goad him into a brawl. Indeed, Barrera stayed at a distance, rarely committing while Pacquiao would stalk patiently, talking to Barrera in clinches in an apparent attempt to get his blood boiling. After three rounds, Barrera would hear from his corner that he had won each and every round. It wasn’t quite the truth. And Barrera responded by landing only five of the 30 punches he threw in the fourth.
Action picked up in the fifth, with Barrera engaging and the combatants exchanging. Barrera’s corner didn’t like it.
“Let’s wait,” they told him. “We’re in the long haul. Don’t exchange punches yet.”
Barrera followed his 19-of-54 fifth with a 13-of-55 sixth. Halfway through the bout, he had neither given nor taken much damage. Through seven, he had landed just 19 jabs, compared to the 48 he had landed through the same point in his first go-around with Pacquiao.
The warrior, for whatever reason, was warier.
Through nine, Barrera had landed just 87 punches to Pacquiao’s 172, compared to 156 for Barrera and 271 for Pacquiao in their first fight. The single-digit average continued into the 10th and 11th, rounds in which Barrera landed nine of 46 and seven of 33, respectively. Barrera was clearly behind on the cards but hadn’t yet tapped into desperation – except for his realizing apparently, once again, that an intentional foul and surviving the duration of the bout seemed the best and last remaining tactics.
Barrera dug deep, hitting Pacquiao on a referee break with a big left hook. Pacquiao wobbled to a corner while referee Tony Weeks deducted a point from Barrera. Amazingly, it was the most fire Barrera would show all night, and the bout was nearly over.
The final CompuBox statistics were instructive: Barrera landed 111 of 527 total shots, including 75 of 215 power punches and 36 of 312 jabs. Punches were rarely put together in combination, and they neither deterred Pacquiao nor convinced the judges, all of whom found Pacquiao the clear winner. It was enough to last the distance and little more. But some fighters take their swan song in front of an easy opponent – Barrera chose the most difficult assignment, gave as much as he had left and never embarrassed himself.
“We boxed him well,” Barrera told HBO commentator Larry Merchant in a post-fight interview. “We thought we dominated him with the left hand. It was very hard. He had a very strong defense.
“I’m sad because I lost at the end. He hit me with very few punches, very few combinations. I’m happy it’s my closing fight,” he said.
Pacquiao was 249 of 667, including 169 of 306 power punches and 80 of 361 jabs. He was busier than Barrera but not the usual whirling dervish, especially not when caution was key against a foe looking to box and counter. Though this win over Barrera was not the defining moment that was his 2003 victory, Pacquiao has in the years since reached the pinnacle of stardom, and he merely needed to come out on top in a fashion that would allow future major matches.
“I’m satisfied with that win,” Pacquiao told Merchant afterward. “I’m trying to make people happy, to give a good fight, to give a good show. I’m still careful. He’s still a good fighter.”
Barrera is indeed still a good fighter, though he is a ghost of the legendary warrior he once was. But he knew, thankfully, that it was time to hang the gloves up rather than haunt his fans with performances far less flattering than Saturday’s boxing match.
Pacquiao, the warrior present, faces future challenges, from a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez to new territory with junior lightweights Joan Guzman, Humberto Soto and Edwin Valero and, potentially, a rise to lightweight for a brawl with Juan Diaz. He has captured championships at flyweight and featherweight and a title at junior featherweight. His career is not yet long but it will eventually be legendary, the tale of a fighter, like Barrera, who will deserve enshrinement in Canastota after the final bell tolls.
The 10 Count
1. The final undercard bout before Pacquiao-Barrera 2 included a look at Steven Luevano, a fighter who could potentially be the future of a weight class once populated by Pacquiao, Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales.
In the bout Saturday, Luevano defeated Antonio Davis by a wide unanimous decision, stifling his opponent with a strong southpaw jab and an ability to set the pace whether coming forward or boxing and looking to counter.
With the win, Luevano joins Robert Guerrero, Chris John and Jorge Linares as the possible new faces of the featherweight division, all 28 or younger and unscarred from the numerous wars embarked upon by their prominent predecessors. John, the only of the four who has not yet appeared on American airwaves, is often mentioned as having defeated the aforementioned Marquez, but few note that the undefeated Indonesian benefited from a terrible, controversial decision in that fight.
2. Also on the undercard, super middleweights Librado Andrade and Yusaf Mack slugged it out for seven rounds before the pace and the punishment caught up with Mack, who, apparently exhausted, took a knee three different times in the final stanza to force referee Jay Nady to wave the bout off.
Mack, who 17 months ago was in the running for the Joe Calzaghe sweepstakes until the Philadelphia fighter ran into the fists of Alejandro Berrio, has now lost twice in his last three outings. Andrade continues to rebuild, winning his second straight since taking an inhuman amount of punishment in a March shutout loss to Mikkel Kessler.
A potential firefight for 2008: Andrade against Edison Miranda.
3. Opening the Pacquiao-Barrera pay-per-view was an undercard bout between former vaunted prospect Francisco “Panchito” Bojado and veteran former junior lightweight titlist Steve Forbes.
Forbes’ last appearance had also been on a Barrera pay-per-view undercard, when he came up on the short end of a controversial split decision in March against Demetrius Hopkins. This time, however, it was Forbes who led on two of the three judges’ tallies, 96-94 and 97-93, with the dissenting opinion reading 96-94 for Bojado.
Bojado, who tipped the scales at 145 pounds, well over the contracted 142-pound limit, lost for the first time since returning from a three-year layoff. He is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place: His stature appears to be made for the junior welterweight division but his body seems to need the extra poundage welterweight allows.
Bojado has now lost three times: to Forbes, Jesse James Leija and Juan Carlos Rubio. “Panchito” is only 24, however, and if his extended sabbatical was indeed long enough to regenerate his love for the sport then he should take the defeats in stride and continue working toward fulfilling his potential.
4. “Dancing with the Stars” update: Floyd Mayweather’s quickstep earned him and his partner Karina Smirnoff 21 points, putting the pair in a five-way tie for fifth place that, combined with audience voting, sent the current welterweight champion forward to another week of the reality dancing competition. Model Albert Reed was booted from last week’s show.
“The footwork was good; you’re an athlete, fits what you do,” judge Bruno Tonioli told Mayweather. “You’re light on your feet, you kept control of it. Work a little more on your posture. But you did the dance and you did it well. Great improvement from last week.”
“You didn’t miss a single step,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba. “I appreciate your spunk. You’ve got an incredible desire. I know you’re a boxer, so you lead with your shoulders. Let that go, just open up your chest a little more.”
5. Samuel Peter, who prior to Saturday had never hit the canvas, overcame three early knockdowns to take a unanimous decision over Jameel McCline by scores of 113-112, 115-111 and 115-110.
With the win, Peter retained the interim World Boxing Council heavyweight belt awarded to him after his originally scheduled opponent, current WBC titlist Oleg Maskaev, was forced to withdraw due to a back injury. Peter, by the way, said after the McCline fight that he broke his left hand during training camp.
Coincidentally, McCline was initially slated to face Vitali Klitschko on Sept. 22 before Klitschko pulled out with a back injury. McCline was then intended to face DaVarryl Williamson on the undercard of Maskaev-Peter before circumstances landed him in the main event.
McCline, who has now lost his fourth title shot, was clearly disappointed.
“I can see maybe a one-point loss or maybe a split decision. But unanimous? Come on,” McCline told interviewer Jim Gray afterward. “I let the opportunity get away. I thought I had him.”
6. McCline was implicated earlier last week in one of the steroids probes that have seen numerous athletes from various sports connected with performance-enhancing drugs, according to the New York Daily News.
McCline allegedly paid more than $12,000 to Signature Pharmacy for drugs that included the steroids stanozolol and nandrolone, in addition to human growth hormone and the estrogen blocker tamoxifen, prescriptions that the heavyweight contender would have received between March 2005 and December 2006.
McCline’s manager, Scott Hirsch, told the Daily News that he didn’t believe the report.
“It doesn’t make sense from what I know about Jameel,” Hirsch told the newspaper. “He’s a clean-living guy. It would really shock me.”
The Peter fight “is his fourth world championship fight, and he’s never tested positive for steroids. He fought in Switzerland for a title back in January, and he was tested extensively and he was clean,” he said.
Showtime interviewer Jim Gray asked McCline about the report in an interview Saturday prior to his fight with Peter.
“I have no comment right now,” McCline said before being pressed further. “I don’t know if the sport’s clean, but I know I’m clean.”
7. McCline wasn’t the only boxer making the news for steroids last week. Joey Gilbert, who made the quarterfinals of the first season of “The Contender” before losing to Peter Manfredo Jr., tested positive for six different banned substances in drug tests issued before and after his Sept. 21 first-round stoppage of Charles Howe, according to ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael.
The laundry list of substances Gilbert tested positive for includes the steroid stanozolol metabolite, methamphetamine, amphetamine, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has temporarily suspended Gilbert, who, pending a hearing in front of the commission, could see his suspension lengthened, his boxing license revoked, his win erased and a fine levied of up to his whole $25,000 purse, Rafael reported.
8. The undercard to Peter-McCline saw former welterweight and junior middleweight titlist Daniel Santos stop fellow former 147- and 154-pound beltholder Jose Antonio Rivera in an eliminator for the right to face current World Boxing Association 154-pound titlist Joachim Alcine.
“It was a good fight, and he’s a hard puncher,” Santos said afterward. “He hit me with some good shots early, but my conditioning was so good it wasn’t a problem. Our game plan was to take him into deep water in the later rounds, and that’s what I did.”
Rivera, who was coming off of a technical knockout loss nine months ago to Travis Simms, announced before the Santos bout that this would be his last night as a professional fighter. He finishes his career with 38 wins, 24 coming by way of knockout, six losses and one draw.
“I had good moments early, but I was unable to explode the way we did in the gym leading up to the fight,” Rivera said. “I stayed in the same rhythm and was unable to pick it up. He had a field day with me. Daniel fought a great fight.”
9. Boxers Behaving Badly: Former junior lightweight titlist Vicente Mosquera is facing indictment for allegedly shooting and killing a man in a Sept. 3, 2006, incident at the Panamanian beach resort of Puerto Caimito, according a report carried by the Xinhua News Agency.
Mosquera held the WBA 130-pound title from April 2005 until August 2006, when he lost via 10th-round technical knockout to current beltholder Edwin Valero.
10. “The Contender” update: Episode five ended with three boxers having automatically advanced to the semifinals (which this columnist incorrectly called the quarterfinals in last week’s column).
The trio of Jaidon Codrington, Sam Soliman and, as of last week’s episode, Sakio Bika is atop the power rankings system being used in this third season of Mark Burnett’s boxing reality series. Codrington scored a second-round knockout of Brian Vera, Soliman took a five-round decision over Max Alexander by a total of 12 points while Bika outpointed Donny McCrary by a total 13-point margin.
This week’s episode will end with five fighters having won their first-round fights, but only four will advance. Currently on the bubble is Wayne Johnsen, who beat Miguel Hernandez by a total of 11 points.
The final preliminary fight will pit Paul Smith against David Banks.
David P. Greisman’s weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com